Place:Dolwyddelan, Caernarvonshire, Wales

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Dolwyddelan is a village and community since 1996 in Conwy county borough in north Wales, on the main A470 road between Blaenau Ffestiniog and Betws-y-Coed. The name of the village translates as "Gwyddelan's meadow", referring to the 5th or 6th century Saint Gwyddelan, after whom the parish church is named. As a community, the population of Dolwyddelan was recorded in the 2011 Census as 474, and 50.8% of those residents could speak Welsh.

The town's name was formerly often spelled as Dolwyddelen, especially by the railway between 1880 and 1980.

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Dolwyddelan from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"DOLWYDDELAN, a village and a parish in the [registration] district of Llanrwst and county of Carnarvon. The village stands on the river Lledr, under Moel-Siabod, amid most sequestered mountainous environs, 7 miles SW of Llanrwst [railway] station; and has a post office under Conway. The parish comprises 14,384 acres. Real property: £1, 974; of which £98 are in quarries. Population: 811. Houses: 164. The property is all in one estate. Dolwyddelan Castle, crowning a rocky steep, and including a massive square tower, dates from the 5th or 6th century; belonged to the Welsh princes; was the birth-place of Llewelyn the Great; and passed to the Berkenets, Meredith ap Evan, and the Gwynnes. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Bangor. Value: £107. Patron: Lord Willough-by de Eresby. The church is good; and there are chapels for Independents and Calvinistic Methodists."

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